A Closely Regulated TWT Converter

The design concept for the traveling wave tube amplifier converter for possible use in the Thermoelectric Outer Planet Spacecraft (TOPS) is presented. An unusual combination of semiconductors and magnetics were utilized to achieve very stable voltage regulation on a number of separate outputs to satisfy the requirements of a high-power traveling wave tube (TWT), and at the same time operate at an efficiency of better than 90 percent from a 30-volt source. The circuitry consists of an output filter, an auxiliary Jensen oscillator driving a high-reactance transformer to provide current limiting to the heater, a variable time delay, a main Jensen oscillator driving the power transformer with a maximum step-up ratio of 120 to 1, and series transistorized post regulators to provide precise voltage adjustment and low output impedance. This paper discusses the design of the high-reactance transformer and the high step-up ratio transformer, as well as the high-voltage series regulators that are limited in range and operate at the top of the unregulated output voltage. Test data is presented, and details of current transients caused by charging the filter circuits, input current ripple, and output voltage ripples are considered. The circuit provides better than 0.5 percent regulation against load change, input voltage change, and over-operating temperature range of from -20 to + 80°C, with output ripple voltage of less than 2 volts peak-to-peak on top of the 3600-Vdc output. The measured efficiency was typically 87 percent. and recommendations are included to improve this to in excess of 90 percent.     

Computer-Aided Design and Weight Estimation of High-Power High-Voltage Power Conditioners

Aspects of high-power high-voltage power conditioner design and weight estimation relevant to space subsystems are discussed. Weight has become an increasingly important parameter with the advent of larger and more sophisticated spacecraft, especially those for high-power communication. A computer program for estimating the weight of a high-power dc-to-dc power conditioner as functions of output power, operating frequency, input voltage range, maximum input voltage, and efficiency, respectively, is described, including computer-aided design of inductors and transformers. Curves of typical power conditioner weight as functions of the preceding parameters, derived from the power conditioner weight program, are presented.     

Low cost X-band power amplifier MMIC

A family of X-band MMIC power amplifiers using a low cost GaAs pHEMT process is reported. The stepper-based volume 0.5 micron and 0.25 micron GaAs pHEMT processes utilize 4 inter-level metallisation and four dielectric layers for high frequency performance whilst maintaining the economies of scale of 150mm (6") diameter substrates. The fabricated GaAs X-Band PA MMICs exhibit SW to low NY output power under pulsed conditions; 16dB of power gain and power added efficiencies approaching 40%. Excellent repeatability and high yields over a number of wafers have been demonstrated. The design and GaAs process approach taken here with DUV stepper and 150 mm wafer diameter will lead to a significant cost reduction for high performance power amplifier MMICs up to 30GHz.     

A New Resonant Mode Amplifier Produces Clean AC Power

A new resonant mode power amplifier design is described which has a number of advantages over the power amplifiers available today. In particular, it has low or no EMI because of the nature of its operation. The new amplifier design is based upon a resonant mode dc-dc converter used in a push-pull configuration. All the advantages of the resonant mode power converters, such as high efficiency, small size and weight, excellent dynamic performance, low or no EMI (compared to PWM switch mode power converter), etc., are present in this new design.     

Adaptive Input Filter Compensation for Switching Regulators

An input filter is frequently employed between a switching regulator and its power source. However, its presence often results in degradation of dynamic performances and stability. The detrimental interaction is between an input filter and a switching regulator and is a function of the input filter parameters and also of the supply voltage. An earlier paper presented an analysis and design procedure aimed at developing a feed-forward loop to cancel this undesirable interaction. The feed-forward design is extended here to encompass a scheme that automatically accounts for changes in the supply voltage; the result is an adaptive compensation that tracks the input voltage variations. Experimental results are presented that confirm the adaptive nature of the design.     

PSK communications systems using fully saturated power amplifiers

Quasiconstant envelope phase-shift keying (PSK) is analyzed to assess its ability to overcome nonlinearities caused by fully saturated RF power amplifiers in communications systems. These modulations can achieve bit error rate (BER) performance comparable to linear BPSK in additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel. Quasiconstant envelope offset quadrature PSK (OQPSK) is presented as a design example. At a BER = 10/sup -5/, the SNR degradation caused by fully saturated power amplifiers is 0.1 dB. The simulated BER matches analytically derived results. For a communications system employing the quasiconstant envelope OQPSK and a rate 1/2 convolutional code with K = 7, the demodulation performance is degraded by 0.25 dB at a BER = 10/sup -5/ when a fully saturated power amplifier is employed.     

Robust model following control of parallel buck converters

A robust model-following (RMF) control technique for average current mode controlled (ACC) parallel buck dc-dc converters, RMFACC, is presented. RMFACC achieves that the loop gain of the voltage loop is little sensitive to the variation of power stage parameters: number of modules, input voltage, load, and component tolerances. The design of the voltage loop is 'decoupled' from the design of the disturbance rejection transfer functions in an important degree, so that the output impedance and audio susceptibility are greatly reduced without the need of high loop gain crossover frequencies. A comparative study between conventional ACC and RMFACC is shown.     

WARLOC: A High-Power Coherent 94 GHz Radar

This paper describes the development of a high-power, coherent radar system at W-band and discusses potential applications of radars with this new capability. Previous radars in this frequency band were limited by available power-amplifier technology to about 500 W of average power; WARLOC radar represents an increase in power, by 20 times, over previous coherent radars at 94 GHz. This performance improvement is possible due to the development of a gyroklystron amplifier specifically for this and future radars in this frequency band. The gyroklystron amplifier tubes deliver 100 kW peak power and 10 kW of average power at a center frequency of approximately 94 GHz. Other novel features of this radar include the use of highly overmoded waveguides and rotary joints for the transmission of power from the final power amplifier (FPA) to the antenna, and a high-power quasi-optical duplexer. The system uses a relatively large 1.8 m diameter (580-wavelength) Cassegrain antenna, which required the development of an antenna with an rms surface accuracy of 0.0025 in, to obtain long-range detection and identification of small objects. Test data show an antenna gain of 62.5 dB, confirming that the needed surface accuracy was achieved. Two mobile shelters house the radar system, permitting relocation to various test sites. WARLOC is presently operational at the Naval Research Laboratory's Chesapeake Bay Detachment facility, Maryland. It is being employed in radar imaging of airborne and surface objects, and in the scientific study of propagation effects and atmospheric physics phenomena.     

Analysis of the linear amplifier/analog-digital converter interfacein a digital microwave receiver

An analysis of the relationship between a linear amplifier chain and an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) in a digital microwave receiver, with respect to sensitivity and dynamic range issues, is presented. The effects of gain, third-order intermodulation products and ADC characteristics on the performance of the receiver are illustrated and design criteria for the linear amplifier chain (given a specified ADC) are developed. A computer program is included which calculates theoretical receiver performance based on gain and third-order intermodulation product selections. Experimental results are also presented and compared with theoretical values     

Performance of an Electrically Small Antenna Amplifier Circuit

A technique is presented to calculate the noise figure and available power gain for electricially small antenna amplifier circuits over a wide bandwidth. The method permits reasonable predictions of circuit performance solely from the manufacturer's transistor data, i.e., without resorting to extensive measurements. Results for a system designed for 10 kHz to 500 MHz coverage are presented. The agreement between the calculated and measured noise figures and available power gain is within 3 dB over most of the frequency range.     

Full bridge ZCS PWM converter for high-voltage high-powerapplications

This paper presents a comprehensive study of a full bridge (FB) zero-current switched (ZCS) PWM converter which is suitable for high-voltage and high-power DC application that achieves ZCS for all active switches, and zero-voltage-switched (ZVS) operation for all diodes on the high voltage side. The given converter utilizes component parasitic parameters, particularly for the high-voltage transformer, and employs fixed-frequency phase-shift control to implement soft-switching commutations. Detailed steady state analysis of the converter power stage is presented for the first time and the major features of the converter's power stage are discussed. Small-signal characteristics are also presented and accompanied by a discussion of the controller design and implementation. A design example is also presented based on the steady state analysis and is validated by simulation. Theoretical and simulated results are in good agreement     

Multimode GaAs Chip-Set for New S-Band Satellite TT&C Transponders

This paper presents a production-oriented chip-set to be used as the circuitry needed to implement the necessary RF functionalities of a new generation of S-band satellite transponders for telemetry tacking and control (TT&C) applications. The RF hardware section integration is achieved by means of a customized chip-set of just four multi-chip multifunction MMIC (MCMM) modules. The functions contained in the monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) include the active circuits needed for the front-end low noise amplifier (LNA), the RF and IF converters, all the variable gain amplifiers (VGAs), the Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO) for both transmit and receive sections, the frequency prescaler and multiplier needed to synthesize the frequency plan as well as the Local Oscillator (LO) amplifiers. The selected technology is GaAs, mainly due to its radiation hardness, essential for aerospace applications, and good reliability. Issues such as suitable circuit topology, efficient dc biasing, circuit area minimization, cost-oriented system design and advanced packaging techniques have been addressed during the design. Measurements and yield results from the manufactured circuits will be presented showing that these components, even though especially designed in the frame of the GALILEO TT&C transponder predevelopment, are suitable for a variety of missions, from Deep space to near Earth, including spread-spectrum transponders with precision ranging function.     

用线性曲线拟合判断固态功率放大器饱和点

在自动化测量系统中,软件需要根据测量数据自动寻找并判断功率放大器的饱和点。在受噪声影响较大的在轨测试中,这是个难点。本文根据固态功率放大器AM/AM特性曲线的特点,提出一种使用多项式线性曲线拟合测量数据建立增益曲线预测关系式,并通过增益趋势线准确判断饱和点的方法。经过真星在轨测试验证,该方法与实际特性吻合很好。     

Energy Control for Microwave Amplifier Arrays

In large systems using microwave amplifier arrays, the size, weight, and cost of individual energy sources require consideration of the use of a common power supply and energy storage bank. Complex energy control techniques may be necessary to protect the RF amplifier and to provide isolation of the faulted amplifier from the common energy source. Four approaches are discussed. Three of these are dependent on either the development of reliable arc-free microwave amplifiers or special isolator tubes, gas or vacuum types. A practical circuit using available components is suggested. Its advantages and limitations are discussed. Calculations are presented showing this approach can result in increased system efficiency, improved regulation, and large decreases in the size of the secondary capacitance bank for each microwave amplifier.     

Soft-switching single-stage AC-to-DC converter with low harmonic distortion

A 1 /spl phi/ high-frequency (HF) transformer isolated, soft-switching single-stage ac-dc converter with low line-current harmonic distortion is presented. Its operation is explained with equivalent circuits for the various intervals. The converter is analyzed and design curves are obtained. An optimization parameter is introduced and a systematic design procedure is illustrated with a design example. Detailed SPICE simulation and experimental results of a 500 W converter with load as well as line voltage variation are given to verify theory. The proposed converter employs a zero-voltage transition (ZVT) network to ensure zero-voltage switching (ZVS) at all loads, and natural power factor correction is ensured using a simple control circuit.     

燃速仪压强的自动控制方案

本文介绍了一种燃速仪压强的自动控制方案.这种方案结构简单,工作可靠.经过燃速实验测定,在4MPa压强时,其压强波动相对误差小于±1%.该方案应用于固体推进剂中止实验时,没有废气回流污染中止表面,也不影响降压速率的测量.     

一种STC电路的实现方法

本文介绍一种适合机载气象雷达的比较完善的 STC 电路的实现方法。它与现行气象雷达 STC 电路的不同之处在于:用多级不同时间常数的指数形成电路产生 STC 电压,控制变容二级管组成的电容电桥的衰减,主中放采用差分放大器。这种 STC 电路实现方法除了在 STC 范围内改变接收机的增益外,不影响整机的其它参数,本文讨论了有关电路的工作原理。     

A multioutput LLC-type parallel resonant converter

When an LLC-type parallel resonant converter (LLC-PRC) operates above resonant frequency, the switching transistors can be turned off at zero voltage. Further study reveals that the LLC-PRC possesses the advantage of lower converter voltage gain as compared with the conventional PRC. Based on the analytic results derived, a complete set of design curves from which a systematic design procedure is developed is obtained. Experimental results from a 150-W, 150-kHz, multioutput LLC-type PRC power supply are presented     

Reconfigurable multiport amplifiers for in-orbit use

A highly reliable and economical system design is presented for a multiport amplifier (MPA) system, which has attracted considerable attention for its potential use in multibeam mobile satellite communications. An MPA is composed of multiple input/output ports and an array of multiple high-power amplifier (HPAs). Since the HPAs are shared among multiple beams, this design solves the problems of traffic imbalance among beams, traffic changes due to terminal movement, and changes in propagation conditions, and can efficiently utilize the total transmitting power with maximum flexibility and minimum hardware. The problem is that HPA failures degrade the MPA beam isolation, causing multipath interference in the surrounding area due to leakage through adjacent beams. To address this problem, we investigated the MPA performance and survival probability when HPAs fail, by taking the specific properties of the MPA configuration into account. Based on our analysis, we found that there is an optimum operational HPA on/off mode in the event of HPA failure, and we were able to obtain optimal performance and reliability by reconfiguring the HPA on/off states in orbit upon the occurrence of HPA failures. Our proposed self-redundant, reconfigurable MPA can achieve high reliability without any need for additional redundant units or switches.     

Table-Aided Design of the Energy-Storage Reactor in DC-to-DC Converters

A new procedure for the selection of magnetic cores for use in energy-storage dc-to-dc power converters that eliminates the need for an automated computer search algorithm and stored data file is presented. The converter configurations included in the procedure are the three commonly encountered single-winding converters for voltage stepup, for current stepup and voltage stepup/current stepup, and for the two-winding converter for voltage stepup/current stepup. For each converter configuration, three types of controllers are considered: constant-frequency, constant on-time, and constant off-time. Using concepts developed from analyses of these converters by considering the transfer of energy by means of an energystorage inductor or transformer, a special table of parameters calculated from magnetic core data is constructed, which leads to a considerably simplified design procedure.